Friday, February 25

The Royal Mail are celebrating over seven decades of musical theatre in Britain by issuing a set of commemorative stamps to reflect the "diversity of British musicals".

There are eight stamps in total using a mixture of production images and show posters for Queen’s We Will Rock You, Lionel Bart's Oliver!, Monty Python’s Spamalot, Me and My Girl – first produced in 1937, Richard O’Brien’s The Rocky Horror Show, Elton John’s Billy Elliot and Return to the Forbidden Planet.

The shows were selected by using the criteria "origins, longevity and success", but I find the choice of Return to the Forbidden Planet a bit bizarre, especially as Andrew Lloyd Webber doesn’t feature anywhere with the Phantom of the Opera and the world’s longest running musical Les Miserables absent.

The stamps are on sale now from the Royal Mail’s website and can be purchased as a set of four 1st Class and four 97p stamps.

Roger Taylor and Brian May of Queen helped launch the stamps at the Dominion Theatre and said: “We’re thrilled that We Will Rock You has been immortalised on a Royal Mail stamp. The image on the stamp takes us back to when we were touring as Queen and embodies the rock and roll music that we wanted to celebrate in We Will Rock You the musical.”